For people who might have dropped the ball, or heart-shaped box of candy, on Valentine's Day this year: don't worry, Cupid is giving out second chances.
Squeaky Wheel is presenting its fourth edition of PEEPSHOW: It's Complicated. This high-energy media art fundraising event will take place at the historic DNIPRO Ukranian Center on Saturday, Feb. 26.
"Media art is basically sound, video, interactive art, something that you would make on a computer or film," said Jax Deluca, director of programming at Squeaky Wheel. "There are a lot of different levels of media art, and a lot of them are interactive."
PEEPSHOW presents a wide array of entertainment, from interactive art pieces and wall instillations to videos and live performances. The event, which started as a fundraiser for Squeaky Wheel, has now accumulated an impressive number of artists from the Buffalo area, and around the world.
This year, more than 40 artists have signed up to present at PEEPSHOW, doubling its size from last year. The event will have to utilize an entire extra floor of the DNIPRO center just to ensure that enough space is provided for all of the entertainers. This extra floor will be turned into a dance area with music provided by AVDJ PROJEX. Belly dancing, burlesque and striptease troops will also be performing at the event.
"The burlesque shows are pretty, not tame, [and] sensual for sure, but it's all local places that are doing [performing arts], so there's belly dancing and really fun burlesque troops," Deluca said. "It's nothing that you would be embarrassed going to see with your grandmother or anything. Everything is very tasteful and it's not outrageous in that sense. I think the artists will be more outrageous than the performers."
Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources is a non-profit media art center that opened in 1985. The establishment provides workshops, exhibition opportunities, residency, artist support, and equipment rental to people in the local area and internationally. The main focus of Squeaky Wheel, though, is to promote and support film, digital, and audio art by media artists and community members.
UB students will also be presenting at the event. Alice Alexandrescu, Marc Tomko, and Tim Scaffidi are all second-year emerging practices graduate students and MFA candidates in the Department of Visual Studies.
"The thing that makes emerging practices a discipline in our department is that idea that our practices are still emerging, meaning that we are forging new territories," Tomko said. "As opposed to a sculptor or painter who is constantly making work that communicates with this past history, we are making work that kind of projects forward instead of reflects backwards."
The art piece that the trio is going to display is a formative, interactive, inverted reality piece known as ‘iSwap.' Two prototype helmets are going to be equipped with old viewfinders from VHS camcorders and each one of them will be hooked up to a small camera. The person wearing the helmet will then have mediated visions. The viewer will experience reality in a whole new way.
"It's almost like a 3-D old black-and-white film," Alexandrescu said. "That's almost what it feels like when you're wearing this helmet. But this is just the beginning [of] the way you're going to view the world."
Alexandrescu explains that this will be a "team building exercise" that will generate trust between the two individuals wearing helmets who will complete simple tasks during the event.
"The iSwap comes into play when we invert the vision, that's where inverted reality comes into play," Alexandrescu said. "So, person A is seeing what B sees, and vice versa. What's going to happen is that it's going to force these people to really communicate with each other to accomplish these tasks."
Even though it is fun, the iSwap experience can be frustrating for the two participants. The trio plans to have a sit-down session with the members who participated in the iSwap piece after the show to talk about how they felt during the performance. According to Scaffidi, the artists are going to attempt to have the participants "psycho-analyze" one another.
PEEPSHOW: It's Complicated tickets are available at Cafe Taza, Sweetness 7, Talking Leaves, and online at www.squeaky.org. Pricing is $15 in advance and $20 at the door.
For more information, visit www.squeaky.org.
E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
